Thoughts on Translation is back from vacation (Costa Rica was amazing, thanks for asking!) and ready to attack some new projects. Summer always seems to be a challenging work time; I’m in and out of the office a lot doing fun things with the family and we also travel for several weeks, so I’m usually trying to fit more work into less time than usual. I haven’t yet made the leap to a smartphone, so mobile computing has been on my mind a lot this season.
I feel it’s really important to take at least one real work-free vacation a year, so on our recent two week trip to Costa Rica we took my daughter’s XO laptop to play some games and briefly check e-mail, but otherwise we were computer-free. My warhorse laptop, a factory refurbished IBM ThinkPad that I bought 7+ years ago, is finally on its last legs; first the touch pad stopped working, now the WiFi only works about half of the time, and sometimes when I boot it up it gives scary error messages that are probably its last gasps of usability!
After a lot of hemming and hawing, I decided to get a netbook; I was on the fence between an MCI Wind and an Asus Eee and finally decided to go with the Eee. The model I got, the 1000 series with a solid state drive and Linux OS, isn’t insanely tiny (unlike some netbooks that are approximately the size of the graphing calculator I had to get for 9th grade math!), but since I have pretty big hands and do a lot of word processing, I thought that a model with an almost full-size keyboard was a better bet. So far I’m really happy with the Eee. I replaced the factory-installed Linux OS with Ubuntu’s netbook-specific distribution and it’s really fast and easy to use. The whole package (the computer, cord and my flash drive) zips into a little neoprene case for easy carrying, it’s pretty slick!
Part of my rationale for getting a netbook was that in the age of ever more pervasive WiFi, it seems like a pretty good substitute for a smartphone. If I’m waiting to pick my daughter up somewhere or out doing errands for a few hours, I’m nearly always within range of a WiFi signal and the Eee Linux model uses so little battery power that I can leave it on nearly all day on one battery charge. Also, I wonder if netbooks are going to put a dent in the market for software upgrades. I paid a little under $400 for my Eee; because our office is an all-Linux shop, the cost of software upgrades isn’t an issue, but if I ran Windows, I would certainly look at the option of attaching a netbook to an external monitor and keyboard instead of purchasing OS and office software upgrades for a desktop computer. Any other netbook-using translators out there? If so, what uses have you found for your little tool?
That seems like a fantastic choice. I recently bought a well-priced Compaq laptop at around the same price, but of course, it’s much heavier, larger, and more challenging to haul around. I still love it, and I hope it lasts a long time. If it does not, I will very certainly consider a notebook. And I totally agree with you on your computer-free vacation, especially in the middle of the Costa Rican cloud forest. Welcome back!
I guess a netbook can really save your days as an emergency computer if your working machine just burns out. Even for daily use, they could be worthy. However, that depends on many aspects, like if you work with CAT software (for example, Trados do not allow the installation of the license from your desktop computer in your netbook). The power of the processor is another question to consider. While an Eee can run smoothly with a Linux OS, I don’t know the performance that could be achieved in a Windows environment, specially with working with more heavy apps like Passolo or Catalyst.
Even though, I think it can be a quite interesting alternative 🙂
I bought an Acer One with Windows XP last october, and I am so happy with it! I wanted to try linux, but I gave it a second thought and finally decided for XP. I wasn’t ready for the change, I guess.
I am really happy with it. As Corinne says, the keyboard is almost normal size, and you get used to it fast enough. Also, I like the wifi possibilities: it really detects and connects with any signal available without problem.
The only difference I can tell with a bigger laptop is precisely that, the screen size. Mine is 9″ but I have tried 10″ laptops and you really can tell. The counterpart is that its 1 kg. makes it comfortable enough to carry around.
Hello,
I have an Eee PC as well, but mine is from the first release. The screen is 7″, and it has a tiny HD of 4Gb. I bought it December 2007, when I started planning a trip to Europe (we live in Brazil). In 2008 we spent 2.5 months between Italy, France and UK, and I took my eee pc with me.
I continued to work normally, as it wasn’t a vacation per se.
I plan to buy another one later in the future, but as I’m not planning any trip for the moment, I’ll wait and buy when I really need a new one, as things will definitely be different.
I can only stress that it’s really light, and that its Wi-fi is wonderful and powerful.
I also have a smartphone (HTC Touch), but I can’t work on it, I translated some small texts, but it’s not comfortable. It’s very good to check e-mails and so, but that’s it.
I forgot to say that mine came with the Linux, but I took it to a shop and they installed Windows XP for me (I own a license for 3 computers).
I use a CAT tool to translate, Deja-Vu X, and it works great with it.
The only problem is due to its small HD, as I have to install everything else in an SD card, and it’s still complaining about “lack of space”.
I have an EEE PC, but I don’t use it as much as my other laptop or my desktop computer, because my eyes get strained very easily after a while, it has no CD-ROM drive and only 12 GB of disk space, so I didn’t install many programs on it.
On the other hand, it is very easy to carry with you. I used it like twice or three times when I was on holiday last year and had to work on my thesis.
I’m still very happy with the Dell Inspiron Mini 9 I bought at the beginning of this year (see http://tomellett.blogspot.com/2009/02/freelancers-new-best-friend.html).
Like Loreto and Adriana, I opted for Windows XP. This allows me to run MS Word, which most of my clients prefer. Since I don’t use CAT or TM, the 16-GB solid-state drive (plus an extra 16Â GB on an SD card) is ample.
I haven’t yet used my netbook to work away from home, but now that summer is here, I’m enjoying being able to take my work out into the garden or to a cooler part of the house.
Sorry, the link in my first paragraph should read:
http://tomellett.blogspot.com/2009/02/freelancers-new-best-friend.html
I purchased a 10″ ASUS AspireOne a couple of months ago when my IBM ThinkPad crashed due to MB failure. After waiting for a few days for calls from the computer shop that promised to fix my ThinkPad but did not manage to fix it as quickly as I would like, I went to buy a netbook so that I would still be able to meet my deadlines.
It turned out that were it not for the netbook (now my back-up computer), I would have been calling my clients asking to move the deadlines, so I’m quite happy with the purchase. Nevertheless, the fact that netbooks are usually smaller in size does wear your eyes out a lot more easily. They do not fit in long working hours unless you can hook it up to another bigger monitor.
Hello. I am glad I found this post, because among the many reviews available on the net, there are hardly none about actually working with text, for a long time, on such a small device. I am thinking of getting a 10″ notebook. I do know from reviews, and from a quick look in a store, that the keyboard looks reasonably spaced, but I do not what looking at such a small screen for hours is like. I re-sized an Openoffice Writer window on my desktop computer to approximately the size of a 10″ netbook screen, and I it seems as thought the text is readable and that, especially if fullscreen mode is used, even vertically, enough text is visible. But I still have doubts, and would be glad to know whether you think a 10″ display is really suitable for long sessions of work with text.
[..] A little unrelated, but I rather liked this webpage post [..]
“Trados do not allow the installation of the license from your desktop computer in your netbook)”
Old post, I know, but this isn’t true.
You can have 2 extra activations with Trados.